Media Technology and Society

Winston's account examines the role played by individuals such as Alexander Graham Bell, Gugliemo Marconi, John Logie Baird and Boris Rozing, in the development of the telephone, radio and television, and Charles Babbage, whose design for a "universal analytic engine" was a forerunner of the modern computer. He examines why some prototypes are abandoned, and why many "inventions" are created simultaneously by innovators unaware of each other's existence, and shows how new industries develop around these inventions, providing media products to a mass audience. The book seeks to challenge the popular myth of a present-day "information revolution", and should be of interest to those interested in the social impact of technological change.